[coldlegs (Stephen)]

Some time ago I ignored the cardinal rule about checking the centre pin of a dc connector was +12v and paid the price. I could be forgiven as the cable was a commercially made one in two out cable that had worked attached to my gear for some time until one day I decided I needed to make a seperate dc cable to run a filter wheel and cut off the unused side of the cable. It turned out that somehow the manufacturer had wired the centre conductor to the outside of the plug and I had just been lucky not to use that side. Didn't think that was possible but believe me it is!! Of course there was a bang and a flash and the power supply did its usual trick of shutting down to protect the fuses (!!) . Thought I'd blown up the filter wheel but it was ok although the Hitecastro Mount Hub Pro had stopped working so being a tech I jumped in and opened her up. Inside were three boards. A seven channel usb hub with a small switch-mode power supply and in the other half a main controller board. Five of the usb are outputs and a sixth is dedicated to the main controller with the seventh unused. Turned out the usb hub was dead so I wired the main controller to an output usb plug and everything still works fine through a single port. I could have sent it back for repair but it would have cost as much as a new hub anyway. Speaking of hubs, I really want a hub that can be commanded to electronically shut down and re-boot a single port (both digitally and DC). Do you know of any? Enough chat, here's an inside picture of the Hitecastro Mount Hub Pro.
Cheers
Stephen